Thread: Hiboy roadster specs?

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Does anyone knows:

1- approx weight of fiberglass fenderless 32 roadster with 350/350 combo in it?

2- Oh and while I'm at it, total length and width? (although, that, I can measure) (tried to get the roadster up on my bathroom scale but he was worried about having gained weight since I bought him - cause we have been partying a lot hehe - so he didn't want to climb up on the scale ).

Will be buying trailer soon and am trying to figure out whether I will need to add trailer breaks on my towing truck or not... currently I tow my travel trailer - about 2500 lbs - without breaks and without any problems.

Thanks!

A lot depends on if body is glass or steel, etc. My guess would be about 2200-2400 lbs. BUt take it to a public scale or local scrap yard where they have scales and then you will know for sure.

Yes, add brakes. When you figure gross vehicle weight GVW, you add the trailer weight to the mix. You definitely want brakes.


Don

I have a 8.5 ft wide x 22 ft. long V-nose interstate trailer, I do run trailer brake!... My 32 roadster is aprox 6 ft wide and a little over 12 ft. long weight is a little over 2100 lbs.

I would recommend the trailer breaks mine have come in handy! For a few extra bucks why take a chance?...

Dave Brisco

Originally Posted by dangeroustoy

I have a 8.5 ft wide x 22 ft. long V-nose interstate trailer
Dave Brisco

I have heard that being low to the ground, a roadster may not always be able to get up on a trailer. Are you able to load it without problems? Is your trailer tilt? How up from the ground is the bed?

You may have to use some 2 x 8 lumber to make a second ramp to the first ramp to make a more gradual grade.


Don

I mis-spoke above, my trailer is a Contential Cargo...

My trailer is an enclosed and the rear door is the loading ramp, it is prabably about a foot and a half from the ground. It does not tilt and I usually load the roadster after the trailer is hooked to the truck. I am not even near bottoming out. I borrowed an open trailer a couple of times prior to buying my own. I did drag the oil pan but only because the ramps were too short. I don't think that highboys are really all that low compaired to most other hot rods, you should not really have many problems loading your roadster on a trailer...

Dave Brisco

Here is a photo from the Continental Cargo web site that shows the trailer I have. This will give you a better idea of how high the trailer is off of the ground. I have also added their web site below if you would like to take a look at the different trailers they offer.

http://www.continentalcargotrailer.com

Dave Brisco

Originally Posted by dangeroustoy

Here is a photo from the Continental Cargo web site that shows the trailer I have. This will give you a better idea of how high the trailer is off of the ground. I have also added their web site below if you would like to take a look at the different trailers they offer.

http://www.continentalcargotrailer.com

Dave Brisco

Thank you Dave - (not sure I can afford one of 'em though... Might have to content myself with a little trailer just to get me by for now)...

Highboy Gal, Wescotts web site { www.wescottsauto.com } has lots of info on length, etc... And in addition to scrap yards, truck stops also have scales. Bill

SBC 350-T350-9" 32 highboys usually come in at 2200-2300#.
With 2300# being the usual.

Length with front frame horns and bobbed rear frame horns is right at 12'.
that includes the gasser style rear bumper.
(Cars similar to a 50 Plymouth coupe are about 16' long.)

Maximum width on my 32 with it's fat rear tires on 10" wide wheels is 71 1/2".

I've had no problems in loading the car onto a flatbed trailer or an enclosed trailer.
The flatbed had 6' long, 18" wide aluminum ramps.

The 20' - which is 20' 6" inside - enclosed box trailer's rear door swings down and is used as a loading ramp.

The 32 isn't real low, but the collectors are 5" off the ground and the car has never dragged.
Over speed bumps, driveways or on both trailers.

You definitely want trailer brakes.
On both axles.

My flatbed had brakes on the front axle only and the one emergency stop I did had the trailer brakes locked and it took forever to get things slowed down.

The enclosed trailer has four wheel brakes and even though heavier, stops pretty good.

The 20' box trailer weighs right at 3000# empty and when the car is aboard it will gross out at 5300# if nothing else is in the trailer.

I've had my trailer loaded right at the gross of 7000# and it did well.

If you're buying a box trailer think about adding a winch.
A mechanical boat winch on a stand is easy to use and a good way to go.

Add a potty room as well.
I did on mine, it didn't add much weight, maybe 65# at the most - including the potty charged with water.
I was careful to use lightweight materials.

The potty room doesn't impinge on space much at all and it's been handy.
The girls much prefer it to the green boxes you find at the race tracks.
And they especially appreciate it when on the road.

Pics of the winch and/or potty room if you like....

Wow C9, you are a wealth of information!!

I racked my brains to think of any questions you had not answered, but could not find a-one (rare thing for me LOL - my middle name is "One last question" ).

I especially appreciated the info on the length of ramps, since I now understand that parameter will have a great inpact on angle and may make or break the successful loading of roadster.

OMG, I just did think of "one last question" How high from ground is the deck of your trailer?

As for potty room, since it is going to be an open trailer i think we will have to pass (might be way too entertaining)

The use of the trailer would be: 1- in case i break down 2- in case i want to do a cruise located outside of my immediate area. I don't intend to trailer roadster to shows or anywhere 'far'.

The box trailer floor is 21" off the ground unladen.

I had a tandem axle flatbed that worked well for me, but when we were getting set up to move from Central California to N/W Arizona part of the moving was two roadsters and the shop.

I could just see leaving the lathe, mill etc. in the open where the little - expensive - accessories and pieces would get picked off if we broke down.

We staged the roadsters and most of the shop at daughters house in North Las Vegas.
That was three 390 mile trips one way.

Then we got the last of the shop stuff, a few spare parts etc. and parked it in a California friends back yard.
Moved a pickup bed full of house stuff that the movers didn't want to take.

Then we lived in North Las Vegas for a month cuz the house we had in Arizona, the owner backed out on the sale the day before we were to move in.
Yeah . . . he's on my list, but disappeared.

Anyway, a month later we got another house and got moved in just fine.
One thing that was nice was storing stuff in the box trailer until I got a shed built for permanent storage.

A month later we went down and picked up the trailer.

Another six weeks went by and we went down and picked up daughters little car and an apartment full of furniture.
We weren't overloaded weight-wise, but had a lot of stuff in the trailer.

Ya gotta be careful, if not you'll end up with a loaded trailer sitting there when you want to use it.

A couple of bicycles - that will get hung up in the garage are in the trailer now along with a couple of boxes of stuff.
A five minute job to unload it and toss the stuff in the garage where the pickup parks.

Here's a pic of the box trailer prior to the move.

It's a Haulmark and is a pretty nice trailer.
Well built - in or near Phoenix, Arizona if you want to pick one up and save $300. - $500. on freight.

You can go to the Haulmark website and get all the specs as well as a blueprint of the frame construction.

Since you're interested in a flatbed trailer, a couple of pics of the one I had prior to the move.

This first pic shows a 1600# capacity hand cranked boat winch.
It dragged a 50 Plymouth 4 door parts car up the ramps with no problems.
Just be sure to chock the rear wheels every couple of feet in case something lets go.
The winch was mounted on a simple braced angle iron bracket.

My little brother had a similar setup on his flatbed that he hauled his drag racing Henry J on, but he mounted the winch on the right front corner horizontally.
The cable went to a pulley center-front.
He didn't want the winch in the way of his center mounted trailer tool box.

If you look close you can see a welders box mounted on the right side of the tongue assembly.
You can get the trailer just about jacknifed before the truck bumper touches the welders box.
Most times you don't turn sharply to that side when backing cuz you can't see.

The welders box was great for carrying a bottle jack, short pieces of 4x4 for chocks and jack height extenders as well as a small piece of rug to kneel on, a 4-way tire wrench, tie-down straps for cars and smaller tie-downs for motorcycles and other tie-downs for stuff.
Along with a few lengths of rope.

Another thing added - out of sight on the right side - was a spare tire bracket that hung the spare tire outside the "fence" and just in front of the fender.

I highly recommend a set of boat trailer hubs.
You can grease the wheel bearings without dis-assembly and the visible spring in the hubs tells you when to knock off the pressure before you blow the seal out.
Great gizmo's and I never had wheel bearing problems on any of my trailers that had these.
Including a sailboat trailer that saw salt water duty and a 6' x 10' single axle utility trailer.

Box trailers usually come with these hubs.

Got my pics out of order.
So this post is supposed to be under the one below . . . anyway....

I got tired of bolting and unbolting the ramps as well as sliding them out and dropping them in place onto the angle iron hook gizmo.

I made up some pivoting front mounts and a steady bar at each side of the trailer so I could simply loosen one bolt/nut and remove another bolt/nut combo each side of the steady bar and either store the ramps near vertical or lower them for use.

If I had to travel with the ramps bolted to the floor of the trailer there was also a tab on the top of the "fence" to lock the steady bar down.

This setup - with these ramps - are only good for in-town stuff.
And they stick up high enough to hit low trees near the sidewalk when parking.

The really bad part about trying to travel with the ramps up at highway speeds is they are terribly un-aerodynamic.
I towed the roadsters with a 2.9 liter Ranger 4x4 and it did fine.
Climbing the Ridge Route (I-5) out of the San Joaquin Valley into the San Fernando Valley, 45 mph in third was easily maintained with the ramps flat on the floor.

With the ramps up it took a couple of miles to attain 55 mph with the trailer empty.

Needless to say, what you need here are ramps constructed of cross-bars or expanded metal that will let the air flow through.

The next step would have been to raise the pivot point so the ramps could lie flat on the trailer floor as well as a different steady bar so the ramps could have been leaned back which would make them a little more aerodynamic than they are in the pic.

Thoughts were entertained about using expanded metal ramps as well.
That would have been the best answer.
You want to set your trailer up so using the ramps is quick and convenient.
Lower the ramps, drive the car on.
Tie it down.
Raise the ramps and take off.

Wrestling with the floor mounted ramps - even though they were mostly aluminum - added another 20-30 minutes to getting the car on the trailer and then getting set up to drive off....

This pic shows the trailer with my 32 sitting on it.

Note the ramps.
They bolt down with one bolt in the center about a foot from the rear.
There's a piece of channel bolted under the floor with nuts welded on so all you have to do is drop the bolts through the ramp and floor and tighten.

You'll note that the usual cross the rear of the trailer angle iron piece is removed.
It's used to hook the ramps in and the nice part about that is you can slide the ramps together for a lawn tractor or all the way apart for a full size car.

Since my ramps were so wide, I elected to make a pivoting mount for the front of the ramps.
They were constructed so they wouldn't fall off like the hook type mounts do sometimes.